Here's a challenge for partners in committed relationships who appreciate scary movies: Get comfortable with your loved one and stream Together. The critically acclaimed 2025 movie just made its online premiere on the Hulu service. On the surface, it could look like typical physical horror, but beneath Together resides a intense contemplation about the ways we decide to love one another.
A Debut Feature Delving into The Nuances of Love
Together represents the first full-length movie for filmmaker Michael Shanks. It features the real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple named Tim and Millie, an unmarried couple that have remained a couple for a decade. United in marriage in actuality in 2017, the actors bring a unique chemistry to their characters, skillfully embodying both the joys and frustrations of a long-term relationship.
The story starts when the couple move from the big city to the country for her career. A familiar story element, sure, but that’s largely where the cliches cease. Together becomes as much a deep dive into the psyche of the partnership as it is a movie featuring biological frights.
A Supernatural Catalyst
While trekking near their rural residence, a tempest descends, and the protagonists fall into an underground cave. After being trapped overnight there and managing to escape, a strange force begins influencing the duo. This force compels a otherworldly bond between them that goes far beyond typical partnership.
The entire film is a slow burn fright fest, interspersing bits of fever-dream horrors, gross (but tastefully done) physical transformations, and authentically humorous dialogue (sometimes during something horrific). The director skillfully blends these components seamlessly and presents them in a gradually swelling atmosphere of fear.
Nuanced Portrayals
A significant portion of Together is only Brie and Franco, and they skillfully illustrate countless layers to the partnership at the film's core. Millie's sense of self and sense of connection is suffering due to a emotional and physical gap. Her underlying frustration of Tim for his reluctance to focus on anything other than his floundering music career gradually emerges.
Tim, on the other hand experiences isolation and isolated by Millie, who’s the reason they’ve left the city and far away from his network of friends. He fears the idea of completely losing his personal autonomy in Millie. This fear is intensified by the circumstance he does not operate a vehicle and relies on Millie for mobility.
The director's cleverest decision in Together never makes Tim or Millie the clear bad guy.
The couple confront the kind of problems that come with long-term unions a decade in. At their core, they continue to care for one another. They find humor with each other, provide solace, and share intimately at times. But below this facade, there’s an unavoidable undercurrent of doubt about their relationship.
Allegory and Meaning
While the supernatural forces in Together symbolize these anxieties of excessive reliance and giving oneself over to a partner, the symbolism never feels clumsy or pretentious. Instead, these visceral horror elements present a ideal counterpart to the relationship narrative. Both the frights and the fights work together in harmony.
A Controversial Conclusion
Together’s conclusion, which remains unspoiled, has left audiences divided on the movie's final takeaway about codependent relationships. Accounts suggest that unattached audience members have understood the narrative as a powerful case for remaining unattached. Conversely, some couples who were in conflict found that the film ultimately assisted them resolve their issues.
If you are alone or with a partner, your own response could function as a revealing measure of how you perceive partnership. Will the conclusion sow a sense of discomfort and fear, or a positive outlook on love? Will you identify in either protagonist and yell at the screen, or simply glance toward your significant other and utter, “We could get through that together”?
Regardless of the outcome, Together is an exploration you can undertake right now.
Together is available to watch on Hulu's platform now.
